The timing on Saturday's [1]Slackware-based Zenwalk ISO "current milestone" update is now more clear with upstream Slackware having prepared what is its first alpha release of the upcoming Slackware 16.

Four and a half years since the release of [2]Slackware 15 , Slackware 16 is slowly working its way toward release. Patrick Volkerding on Saturday sent out the latest updates to Slackware current that he is referring to as Slackware 16 Alpha 1.

This followed updating the GNU toolchain to GCC 16.2, Binutils 2.47, and the GNU C Library 2.44. Patrick wrote in his brief [3]Slackware64-current change-log remarks:

"Upgraded to binutils-2.47, gcc-16.2.0, and glibc-2.44, and compiled everything with them. There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, eh?

Cheers, and have a good weekend."

All the packages were rebuilt, the Linux 6.18 LTS kernel is powering Slackware 16 Alpha 1, and the LILO bootloader is still around in the Slackware world. Some other packages like Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, and libxml2 were also upgraded in the process for security and bug fixes.

This Slackware 16 Alpha 1 milestone comes just months after [4]Slackware finally landed the KDE Plasma 6 desktop packages .

At least Slackware 16 is on a trajectory to release quicker than the amount of time it took Slackware 15 to be released, considering [5]Slackware 14 released back in 2012 .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Zenwalk-2026-Current

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Slackware-15.0-Released

[3] https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware64-current/ChangeLog.txt

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Slackware-KDE-Plasma-6

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/MTE5NTM